Wild Horse Nine(2026)

This review may contain spoilers.

So I didn’t think I’d recover from being sick this quickly, and didn’t make any plans for today, which was why I ended up booking this last minute after chores and gym. I also needed an excuse to go to Tokyo Central to buy 3 pounds of Japanese bento boxes to feed myself for the week and get their 20% after-7pm discount. This ended up being the most serendipitous theater experience I’ve had this year. It’s deliriously funny, in addition to being surprisingly heartwarming and profound.

The first 20 mins very quickly establishes Lee and Chris as basically irredeemable characters--I honestly thought the movie was just going to let us revel in their misery--but the story is actually a great lesson on what redeemability is. As horrible as Lee and Chris's past were, nothing in the film disgusted me more than that female agent's "I'm sorry" after her failed attempt on the Chilean student's life. Her weak protest before her boss to convince herself she's still a good person, and then the decisive action to doom someone who's completely innocent when she 100% could have looked the other way since no one else in her party even knows what the student looks like. And then she turns around and says "I'm sorry"? Makes me sick just to remember this.

On the other hand, while both Chris and Lee should still be going to the Hague (and hell for sure), their self-awareness and acceptance at this moment in time make you no longer delight in their pain. From where they were 100 mins ago, that feels like pretty drastic redemption to me.

It's kind of crazy if not for the less fortunate circumstances of this weekend, I probably would have never watched this movie because the premise honestly read repelling--I am almost never interested in the CIA. I am so happy I did. Also, I think I will put "Democracy leads to gays which lead to cheese" on a tshirt and print it. DM me if you want one.